


the long way round

by Sir_Bedevere



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: F/M, Making Up, Post-Canon, Reunion Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-12 00:33:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18000395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Bedevere/pseuds/Sir_Bedevere
Summary: Now she’s here, back in his territory, she can feel Hades’ presence pulling at her, drawing her in. She wonders if he can feel her too. He’ll be confused, surprised that she came. But, hopefully, he’ll be pleased.Gods, she hopes he’ll be pleased.Persephone doesn't feel like waiting six months before she sees him again. They've wasted too much time waiting.





	the long way round

The first thing she does up top is go and find the poet. Well, after she jumps off the train and proves to Ma that she’s back, same as usual. No telling what the old dame would do if she forgot to do that. 

But after that, Persephone goes to find the poet. It isn’t hard and anyway, Hermes can find anyone if you ask him nicely. The kid hasn’t strayed far from where she first saw him, strumming his guitar, only now he don’t look so much like a kid and his guitar is strung across his back. It ain’t fair what happened to him, and Persephone knows it. She and Hades should have known better than to get mortals involved in their arguments. They’re too old for games. Though she must admit, watching Orpheus wander, that she don’t feel so old. She don’t feel like she knows very much at all. 

Hades promised her, before she left, that he will let the girl wait for Orpheus. It ain’t so long a time really till he dies and goes back to his Eurydice, least not in the grand scheme of things. But it will feel oh so long to him, and Persephone regrets that. There’s nothing she can do for him save from killing him where he stands, but she was a Goddess of Life long before she was the Queen of Death, and she doesn’t go around smiting. The mortals do quite enough of that on their own. 

So when he sleeps, fitful and restless, she goes to his side and makes him a bed of red roses, so that when he wakes, he’ll know that it wasn’t all a dream, and somewhere Eurydice is waiting. 

Then it’s back to Ma and the springtime, cos there’s always work to be done. And for the first time in a long time, as she works, Persephone thinks of her husband. He’ll be working too, on gods know what – and she hopes he is thinking of her as well.

It was almost too much this time. The poet and the girl and the bloody Electric City, but she hopes – no, she believes- that it might be alright. After all, they’ve had a long time to fight. In the greater scheme of it all, it isn’t so bad. Hades promised that he would wait for her, and they’d danced so sweet, just like they used to. And he didn’t seem to mind that folks were watching while they did it, how he rested his head just so on her shoulder and it felt like no time had passed at all since that first day she saw him in the field of flowers. He’s never been as tough as he pretends to be. 

So it’s hard this time, like it used to be hard. The waiting is going hard on her, and she’s sure it will be going hard on him. They had just understood each other and she had to leave. She doesn’t feel much like living it up.

She misses him, and that damn dank hole, and she won’t make it three more months without losing her mind. 

It ain’t like she’s never done it before. There’s been cold summers, days when the mortals pull out the sweaters and moan about the cold. It isn’t a big deal. If she’s lucky, Ma won’t even figure out she’s gone till she’s already back. Persephone won’t be fixing on staying for long. Just a visit. She needs to see him, and make sure he isn’t doing anything else stupid. 

Hermes used to complain about getting the train ready, but he doesn’t this time. He’s a good brother, for all his mischief, and he’s always treated Hades right when so many others don’t. He gets it this time, that it is important, and by the next night, the train is waiting at the station. 

Persephone takes nothing with her. She reckons Ma will flip less if she can see that she’s planning on coming back prompt.

Or not. Probably not. But Persephone doesn’t much care about Ma right now. 

“Evenin’,” Hermes grins, as he steps off the train. “Lovely night for a bit of lawbreakin’.”

“Shut it,” she says. “Only lawbreaking if you get caught.”

He’s only laid on one carriage for this little trip, and he sits beside her rather than pacing up and down the train. He’s quiet, and she punches his arm. 

“So brother, what’s the news? Pa been up to anything new?”

Hermes snorts and rolls his hat down his arm, catching it as he flicks it off his wrist.

“Pa’s hasslin’ mortals. Uncle P is hasslin’ nymphs. Can’t say a word about anything to Hera cos she’s in the mood for gelding someone and you know it ain’t gonna be Pa. And as for the rest of ‘em. Well you know. Nothing changes.”

“And how is he? You seen him much?”

Hermes pauses, then brings the flask to his lips. She watches him drink. He’s stalling for time.

“You gonna see for yourself. Whole point of this trip.”

“Just tell me.”

Hermes shrugs. 

“You know the big man. Keeps to himself mostly, doesn’t say much. Same as usual when you ain’t around.”

“But-”

“Hush, sister. You’ll see him soon enough.”

The last time the train pulled into the station, it had been so hot that she could feel the platform burning through the soles of her boots. It is better now, cooler. The air isn’t fire in her lungs. He’s shut the damn forge down, at least. 

Persephone turns to see Hermes hasn’t moved from his seat. He nods and shrugs, and she gets the message. He’ll be waiting for her here. As she walks away, he props his feet up on the seat and pulls his hat down over his eyes. 

Now she’s here, back in his territory, she can feel Hades’ presence pulling at her, drawing her in. She wonders if he can feel her too. He’ll be confused, surprised that she came. But, hopefully, he’ll be pleased. 

_Gods, she hopes he’ll be pleased._

The Underworld doesn’t have a day and a night, so far down here from the light, but it has its own kind of rhythm. The souls don’t need to sleep but they work shifts, same as when they were living, and there are pockets of quiet, like this one now. 

It’s dark too. He’s switched off the damn lights. 

This is a lot more like the home that she’s been missing. 

She doesn’t see anyone apart from a few souls on the way to Hades’ rooms, and they turn their eyes away from her. It don’t mean a thing to them if she’s there or not, and she doesn’t tend much to bother them. They still make her sad, even now. 

Somewhere not too far away, she can hear Cerberus’ rumbling snore, but she won’t go to find her. The beast will only get excitable and bring Hades running. And Persephone wants it to be a surprise, for what it’s worth to them both. 

The rooms that they live in down here are simple, especially compared to Pa’s place up top, but they always suited Persephone just fine, and Hades ain’t flashy. Persephone runs her hand down the wall as she walks the long corridor, and stops outside of his bedroom. It used to be his office, till they stopped talking to each other, and he stopped sleeping in their bed. He’s been sleeping here for so long, and she’d been happy with that, cos they were both stubborn fools. Well, she ain’t happy with it now. 

She pushes at the door. It’s unlocked, and swings open into the dark. Her eyes are getting used to it again, and she peers in. 

His bed is empty. 

_Huh._

If he was up and about, she’s sure that she’d know it by now. The pull of him is faint and that usually means he’s sleeping, but he ain’t here. She paces along the corridor, wondering if she’s come rushing back to see him only to find that he’s been putting himself about down here, and he’s in someone else’s bed. 

She’ll murder him. He’s made a damn fool of her _again_ and she’ll _murder_ him. 

She steams past her bedroom door, and then stops, cos the door is shut when she left it wide open and there’s a sound from the other side. So she opens the door and steps inside, and there he is. He _is_ in someone else’s bed.

Just happens to be hers. 

He’s on his front, blanket pulled up to his waist, arms folded under his head on the pillow. She holds her breath, cos there’s no sight that she has ever loved more than him sleeping, and it’s been a long time since she saw it. Been a long time since she wanted to, and she’s gonna make the most of it now. Back when they’d first started out, this was one of the things that she had fallen in love with. How peaceful her man looked when he was resting, and how he didn’t trust anyone else to see him like that. Persephone wants to reach out and touch him, but not yet. She doesn’t wanna wake him and ruin it. He’s like a painting or something.

Hades must have been working himself hard though, cos he’s never usually this much of a deep sleeper. She circles the bed and slips off her boots, kicking them out of the way, and staring at him some more. He does look tired, his face lined, but then – well, no getting around the fact that they’re both getting old. Persephone has been seeing it on her own face for a while, the lines and the shadows, but she ain’t given them much thought. Seems odd seeing them on him though. Odder still looking close enough to see ‘em. 

_They’re gettin’ old, and they’ve wasted all this damn time being mean._

In the distance, Cerberus barks, and Hades’ hand twitches beside his head, on the pillow.

It is strange, Persephone thinks, to be nervous now. She is the one who has come down early, as though they are still young and flushed with love, but watching him sleep so soundly she suddenly doesn’t know what to do. What she wants to do. Well, that ain’t strictly true. She knows exactly what she _wants_ to do. But they ain’t done that for a while – a long old while – and she is kinda anxious about it. They both fucked up, she knows that, but she’s always been the more forgiving kind of gal, and he holds grudges like they’re going out of fashion. So it is fair, she reckons, to be unsure of what he’ll think when he wakes up. 

She slides onto the bed next to him, thinking that now will be when he wakes up, but he sleeps on. Maybe he’s not been so light a sleeper lately and she just didn’t know it, on account of being apart. She wonders how long he’s been sleeping here when she ain’t around, and then decides she don’t need to know the answer. If it is a long time, or if it is a new thing, it still means that he wants to be near her. That’s how she’ll think about it anyway. He is a romantic after all, under the damn suit and the tattoos.

And with that thought, she kissed him.

Nothing special, just on the forehead like she kissed his cheek when she went up top three months before. But that cheek kiss, and this forehead one, are more than they’ve given each other in years. 

He wakes up slowly, like a cat stretching in the sun, and his eyes open last.

She grins at him.

“Hey, lover.”

For a moment he doesn’t speak, just blinks those dark eyes at her, and she keeps smiling cos damn it, she’s pleased to see him.

“It’s summer,” he says eventually. “What are ya doing here?” His hand reaches out and touches her, almost on its own accord. “And I ain’t even dreaming, it seems.”

“Sure ain’t,” she says, and leans down to kiss his cheek. “See?”

He’s dopey with sleep, and soft, and it takes him a while to think it through, but when he does, he grins back at her.

“You’ll be getting us scolded, lover,” he growls. “Hermes’ll be here any minute.”

“Who do you think got me here, huh? I’m hardly gonna walk the track, am I?”

“Wouldn’t put it past ya,” he says, and turns onto his side. Now he is awake, he is careful not to touch her, and she thinks for some reason of Orpheus, who can’t touch Eurydice even if he wants to, and it makes her sad all over again. She can’t stand this being careful. They shouldn’t be careful. 

“I’ll ask again. Why are ya here?”

Persephone reaches out with her own hand and takes a hold of one of his. His hands could crush hers, she thinks, but he’s never been anything except gentle. Even when Ma was screaming about him and how he was a bad type, he was always gentle with her at least. She’s always tried to be gentle with him too, but looking at him now, she ain’t so sure that she’s managed it.

“Needed to see ya,” she says, telling the truth. “Didn’t wanna wait.”

“Oh.” He looks down at their joined hands, and then he grins up at her from under his eyebrows. “Well, it is a mighty fine surprise, lover.”

_Gods, he’s handsome. So fucking handsome, even with his hair mussed and that disgusting old vest that he’s wearing._

“Kiss me,” she says, then doesn’t give him time to react cos she’s already pulled him towards her and kissed him herself. It’s been a while, but gods it is sweet. He wastes no time in kissing her back, once he’s over the shock of it, his hands coming around her waist to hold her still as she tries to climb on top of him. 

He’s been drinking whisky. He tastes like it anyway, and she kisses him deeper. Drinking alone is a sad old thing but she won’t think about it. Not right now. She does succeed in wriggling away from his hands, moving into his lap and catching his wrists in her hands. He lets out a little noise as she settles on top of him and she grins into his mouth. 

“Thought you’d be pleased to see me,” she whispers against his lips. “Hoped you would.”

“Course I’m pleased,” he growls, moving his face away enough that he can look her in the eye. “But you ain’t gotta. If you just dropped in to say hi – ”

“Shut up,” she laughs, although something inside her stomach flips. He’s trying so hard, and she’d be made of damn stone if she didn’t appreciate it. “Thanks though.”

Then she kisses him again. Her hands are tight around his wrists and he plays along, acts like he couldn’t break out of her grip any second, and lets her pin him down flat on his back. Not like he ain’t into this anyway. They’ve not forgotten that much between them. She grinds against him, slow because she can’t deal with fast any more than he could right now, and sucks his tongue into her mouth. He groans and his fingers twitch into fists, then loose again. He wants to touch, and she is of a mind to let him. Her dress is feeling much too tight.

When she can’t breathe, she breaks away from his mouth and gasps, letting his wrists go. His eyes fly open and he sits up, taking her with him. He runs his hands up her back and into her hair. They breathe together, his face pressed into her chest, and she traces her fingers over the back of his neck. He shivers under her touch and holds her closer, mumbling something that she can’t hear. 

“What’s that, lover?”

He leans his head back and looks up at her, and he looks so young, when lately they’ve been feeling so old. 

“I said I’ve missed ya sorely. And I’m sorry. For it all.”

“Missed ya too,” Persephone kisses his forehead, her lips lingering. “Takes two to mess up like we did. I’m sorry as well.”

He looks like he is about to argue with her, but she ain’t having any of that. The blame game is over now. 

“Are you gonna undress me or do I have to remind you what to do?” she asks. 

He smiles, and she knows that smile. This is more like it. She can’t stand the being careful.

Her dress is easy to get off – she might have planned it, had a hope they’d get here – and he seems to remember, pulling it up over her head in one move. She ain’t wearing anything underneath it and he makes that noise in his throat again, leaning his face forwards to nuzzle her breasts. The growl goes straight through her as his lips find a nipple, and she allows it for a little while, but she can feel him pressing against her through his shorts and she wants them off. The bloody vest too. 

Her hands scrabble over his back and tug at the vest. He gets the message, breaking away for long enough that she can get it off him, and then he is back at her breasts. He grazes with his teeth this time, and she bucks her hips against him. This ain’t gonna last long for either of them. 

“Shorts off,” she says. “Now.”

She shuffles off his lap and grabs at them, their hands colliding in the hurry to get them off him. She swats him away and he lets her get the waistband, pulling them down and throwing them out of the way. They’re equal again, like this. 

She lies down on her back and drags him over her. He looks at her questioningly, his hands on her breasts, and she nods. She ain’t always a fan of it being like this, and he remembers, but right now she needs it and she reckons that he does too. He’s hard and dripping already onto her thigh, but he props himself up with one arm and the fingers of his other hand come between her legs. His fingers are thick and calloused, more so than ever since he got older, but she’s so damn wet for him that she barely feels a thing as he curls two of them inside of her. 

She reaches blindly for him as his fingers press harder, and kisses any part of his face she can reach. Finds his ear and licks at it, cos it has always made him shiver.

“Keep that up, lover, and this won’t be a long night,” he mumbles. She wriggles her hips and squeezes around his fingers, cos he needs to get the message right now. 

The bastard laughs, and gets the message alright. He just ignores it, and presses in a third finger instead. Persephone ain’t ever been noisy when they do this, but this is a special occasion and she wants him to know how much she appreciates him. And anyway, with his fingers curling against her just there, and his mouth back on her breasts, she ain’t got much of a choice. Her legs are tightening and she bucks her hips up, and he presses hard one more time and she comes with a moan that is just for him. 

He is slow to take his fingers out, and she curses as he does so, the callouses on his fingers rubbing in just the right way that the first jolt goes through her already for round two. When she opens her eyes, he is leaning on his arm, and gazing down at her. He looks pleased with himself, but he’s shy too, like he used to be back when this all started. 

“You gonna fuck me now?” she asks, and he licks his lips. He loves it when she curses, as much as he pretends to disapprove of her mouth. 

“You ready?” he asks.

“Always.”

She reaches out to take him in hand, but he catches her fingers in his and kisses them. 

“You don’t wanna do that if you want this to happen.”

“Well, get on with it then,” she grins, and runs her hands up his arms as he crawls over her. “We both been waiting too long for this.”

There’s no fanfare as he presses into her, and she wouldn’t want one. She just wants this to be normal again, normal for them, and she’s missed him so much, the beautiful bastard. He stretches her – he is a god after all – but he’s never been anything but an odd kind of gentleman and she can take it. 

He pushes in as far as he can and pauses, his eyes shut. She squeezes tight and he swears under his breath, then she begins to flex her hips. He takes two deep breaths, then kisses her and begins to move. His pace is slow, always starts slow, but he doesn’t take long to speed up, encouraged by the rhythm of her hips. She runs her hands over his shoulders, broad and trembling with the effort of holding himself up. This is right. This is how they’re _meant_ to be. Persephone and her Hades. Hades and his Persephone. 

“Come on,” she whispers. “Don’t hold back. I ain’t resenting a thing.”

He makes that little noise again and his pace picks up. He switches positions, leans heavily on one arm and brings the fingers of his other hand to where they are joined, rubbing her as he works in and out, and she arches against him. All the thoughts are gone from her head, except the one that says to hold him close, and she does as her legs start to shake once more and she comes for the second time. He goes tense and pulls his hand away, holding her chin so that he can look into her eyes as he, finally, comes himself. 

_Well, that worked out pretty good._

He collapses on top of her and she holds him tightly as he presses his face into her shoulder and she is reminded, once again, of how they danced to Orpheus’ song. He shivers and she thinks maybe he is remembering it too, the first sign that maybe they weren’t lost to each other after all, and now they are here and she is so grateful that she can feel the tears gathering in her eyes. She cradles his head and listens to him breathe and when he finally looks up, she thinks that he might have been crying too. 

They’ve both had plenty to cry about. She ain’t gonna judge him for it, and she thinks that he knows or else he wouldn’t have let her see it.

“I love you,” he says, kissing her as she runs fingers through his hair, smoothing down the mess. “Ain’t told ya that enough lately, I know.” 

“I know. I love you too. Never really been in doubt of that, deep down.”

She is surprised to find that every word she is saying is true. Here, like this, like they used to be – she knows it is true.

So they can lay here a while and hold each other, and they can sleep all tangled like they used to, and it will be good. And yeah, she has to go back up top when she wakes up and he has to let her, but three months ain’t that long for them and they both got their work to do. 

It’s been hard. Too hard and they lost too much time, but it’s over now and she knows that he’ll be waiting for her when she comes back, and he knows that she is coming back to him with a spring in her step and a smile on her face, and that’s all they’ve ever needed before to be happy. 

So they’ll be happy again. It is the one damn thing she is sure of.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, tk, for making me brave all the time! <3


End file.
